Monday Mix-Tape: Pop Corn

Yes, as mentioned on Friday, Monday is now mix-tape day, giving you a) suggested listening to combat Monday-itis, b) readymade playlists for the iTunes-illiterate and/or c) a rest from the litany of hatred and bitterness that Noise Pollution is usually.

There'll be YouTube vids where possible (and where their viewing won't be likely to give you ocular herpes) and most of the songs are iTunes-able. Feel free to suggest mix-tapes you'd like to see tackled, too (emails to the usual address; see the end of the blog for deets). And if you weren't crammed full of pop by the end of last week, get ready to stuff 'til you chuck.

As also mentioned on Friday, this inaugural-ish Monday Mix-Tape is all about the teen pop girl and boy bands - and the girl-and-boy bands, as it was too bad that my favourite co-eds missed out on death match seeding by simple virtue of keeping things XX&XY-chromosomed. To wit!

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5ive - Everybody Get Up
As the "bad boys" of pop, 5ive liked to get all up in your Kool Aid in a variety of fashions, never with more "authentic" tuffness than in the video for the very excellent and I Love Rock 'N' Roll-sampling Everybody Get Up, which features the original and fresh concept of kids gone wild in the school halls. So the video's bollocks - who cares; the song still packs dance-floors every time I drop it on unsuspecting revellers.

Sugababes - It Ain't Easy
They're mostly known (or at least acclaimed) for their tough electro-pop mid-period, but this Sugababes album track is as good, if not better, than any of their Richard X or Anglomania singles. It's basically Personal Jesus for teenage girls - in fact I'm surprised Sugababes didn't come down with a burning case of the My Sweet Lordss upon its release - right down to the Depeche Mode-aping synthesisers and thumping bass drum, and it's bloody awesome.

B*Witched - C'est La Vie
One of the finest moments in the late-'90s Irish pop explosion (if an "explosion" can entail all of, oh, four artists), C'est La Vie is all the more arresting because of the almost entirely synthesised arrangements of the rest of the song, from the bouncy keys to the "guitar" and the God awful 'DJ' effects (Lord knows who decided that some street scratching would be totally non-incongruous in the midst of a girly pop song sung by delightful Oirish hotties...). Thus, when a traditional Irish tin whistle solo explodes out of the middle eight at 2.05 (Riverdance-esque interpretive jig optional), it's like someone's opened a window and let in a gale.

Take That - Back For Good
You can laugh at Howard's hair (and I did), you can laugh at the line "Got a fist of pure emotion" (and I did), you can laugh at Robbie Williams and Mark Owen pirouetting under the rain machine (and I did), but the one thing you can't laugh at is the almighty power of Back For Good - it's a bloody masterpiece. Sucks for Gary Barlow and Robbie Williams, eh.

Atomic Kitten - Right Now
Liverpudlian lovelies Atomic Kitten were leaders of the late-model teen pop pack when it came to embracing the pink dollar, and it's certainly no giant leap backwards from camptabulous drag parties like Ladies' Night to the giddy disco of their debut single, Right Now. The woozy strings around the 2:38-minute mark are as good as anything Jeff Lynne's ever had a hand in - appropriately, since Atomic Kitten would later heavily sample ELO's Last Train To London for their underappreciated b-side, Be With You.

Backstreet Boys - Larger Than Life
Put simply, producer and Backstreet, *Nsync and Britney Spears svengali Max Martin is a genius - and nowhere was that more apparent than in the epic stadium pop of Larger Than Life, a perfect melding of ego and bravado as well as hinting at a deep well of male pain and insecurity (in this case, the trouble with fans). Its totally pointless and irrelevant deep-space video is still the sixth most expensive ever, too, at a mere $2.1million.

N*Sync - Girlfriend (Neptunes Remix featuring Nelly)
Everyone shat themselves over Justin Timberlake's Justified, what with its heavyweight hip hop and R&B production values, but his former group *Nsync got there first; the version of Girlfriend that everyone cared about - i.e. this one - was one of the first teen pop tracks where R&B and pop collided head on, and everyone was the better for it. Except for Joey Fatone.

Spice Girls - Say You'll Be There
There's nothing like a bit of nu-disco/faux-funk to get the party started and this early Spice Girls has it in spades, from its synth bass to its air harmonica and heavenly pre-chorus chorus. Add to that a righteously low budget (it's amazing how swish a fewpaillettes and a vintage car can make the salt flats look), G-rated-Russ-Meyer video and you have a recipe for magic, and probably their best song.

S Club 7 - Don't Stop Movin'
Oh how the indie types like to fan themselves with their hats like something out of an Art Frahm calendar and say "Phew! Broken Social Scene/Soundtrack Of Our Lives/etc have so many members!" Well, S Club 7 (owners of one of my favourite bits of album cover art of all time) say "bugger you" to a mainstream scene that's only recently rediscovered the joys of multi-membered outfits. Don't Stop Movin' has it all: a killer bassline (admittedly a pastiche of Billy Jean), an official danceand post-Cool Britannia teen nihilism ("You can touch the moment almost/Feel it in the air/Don't know where we're going, baby/We don't even care").

All Saints - Never Ever
I can't say much about this other than 'GENIUS'. Hear it, know it, see you next Monday for more mix-tape madness.

LATEST COMMENTS

As 12 year old I loved these songs and saved my pocket money to buy their CD's (albeit *Nsync, though I have both JT's albums). And by god, I still love their cheese!

Posted by: Anonymous on January 24, 2007 4:16 PM

my Spice Girls pick would be Viva Forever.

Posted by: Igomi Watabi on January 24, 2007 12:57 PM

I can't believe i'm writing in this but:

As good as larger than life is, surely it could have easily been interchanged with either i want it that way OR The call?

Good focus on the mid/late 90s, it was a golden age for cheesy pop music. Perhaps some Ultra or Amber or En Vogue or Az yet wouldn't go astry either?

Posted by: v on January 23, 2007 6:57 PM

Over the years there has been GREAT pop music made.

nothing on this list though

Did I say this list was definitive? - CB

Posted by: Dennis on January 22, 2007 11:24 PM

Nice list! I like it how you chose Spice Girls Say You'll Be There over Wannabe which is the one most people mention. Though I would have switched Sugarbabe's It Ain't Easy with Push The Button but I guess I'm just being picky.

Posted by: Rebecca on January 22, 2007 10:35 PM

Get me half a layer of cheese and I'll eat it, that's what most of those songs remind me of, they are all as cheesy as each other and most of those bands except for Sugababes and All Saints don't exist anymore...you really should come into the 21st century and check out Lily Allen and Girls Aloud

Posted by: Julie on January 22, 2007 4:24 PM

I agree with the article in its essense.

Posted by: little JOE on January 22, 2007 2:21 PM

Sorry, butt this list is so bloody awful and out of date I'm just going to assume you've written it through gritted teeth just because "ironically" loving pop has become tres cool with the 'irony' set and your editor told you to do it after flicking through a recent copy of The Guardian.

May I suggest ANY TRACK from Girls Aloud's "Chemistry" album, particularly though the album tracks "Watch Me Go" (it's about bondage: "at quarter past two/i was dressed in red/tied up to your bed") and "Wild Horses" ("wild horses wouldn't take me back to you/get out of town and take your lazy dog with you") which are both pop brilliance.

Posted by: PopGoesCanberra on January 22, 2007 12:58 PM

Hmm, I must get out more. I was disappointed to realise I hadn't heard of the majority of these songs. Not a comment on whether they're good or not, just honestly never heard of them. I'm cut.

But then, as I found out last week, I am more than a decade older than the author!